Working from home with your Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi 4 is more than powerful enough to serve as replacement desktop computer while you’re working from home. Or as a secondary desktop to help you out while you’re doing other things, such video conferencing, on your main computer.

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B

If you’re pulling your Raspberry Pi out of a drawer right now, you should make sure you update it with the latest version of Raspbian; if it’s been a while since you used this Raspberry Pi, you might even want to install a new copy of Raspbian so you know you’re working from a good base image. Fortunately, you can use our new imaging utility, which makes installing a fresh copy of the operating system much easier.

Connecting a monitor, keyboard, and mouse

I normally use my Raspberry Pis headless as a server. But working from home, and using Raspberry Pi as your primary computer, you’re going to need a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

My Raspberry Pi 4, which I use for video calls, perched on the edge of my desk at home

Except for the monitor, the Raspberry Pi Desktop Kit has everything you need to get you going, including a USB-C power supply and all the necessary cables.

Connecting a keyboard and a mouse to your Raspberry Pi just involves plugging them in, although you should probably make sure you plug them into the USB 2 rather than the USB 3 sockets. You can tell these apart by their colour: USB 3 sockets have blue ‘tongues’, while USB 2 sockets have black ones.